31.085 - Trains, Tents, and Board Games: Collaborative Teacher Research Into Historical Trauma Through Arts-Based Inquiry

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This presentation features artwork and presentations by middle school students who partnered with teacher researchers, both in-service teachers and teacher candidates, on collaborative research in response to Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus (1986). The artworks are the products of a several-month participatory action research study involving 31 students and 22 teacher candidates who explored issues of identity, culture, and power through inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). Together, teachers and students used the arts to surface the cultural and historical legacies that inform their awareness and experience of the Holocaust. Findings suggest implications for how the arts can be mobilized in practitioner research to interrogate difficult historical moments.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Teacher as Researcher

Chair

• Rob Simon, University of Toronto

Papers

• Train Cars - Sarah Evis, Toronto District School Board 

• Tent - Ben Gallagher, University of Toronto

• Board Game - Ty Walkland, University of Toronto

• Comics - benjamin lee hicks, University of Toronto

• Masks - Doug Friesen, University of Toronto

Discussant

• Susan L. Lytle, University of Pennsylvania